Coalescent theory is a branch of mathematical evolutionary theory that began as recently as the early 80's. Its methods provide a computationally efficient statistical analysis of genetic samples compared to previous methods, e.g., simulation of the Wright-Fisher model. Because of the HapMap Project, which is elaborating a haplotype map of human beings, it has implications for the understanding of genome-wide associations studies, and thereby the determination of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that contribute to human disease. Active areas of recent research in coalescent theory include the determination of human recombination rates, and in particular the prediction of so-called recombination hot-spots. The location of recombination hot-spots is critical to interpreting linkage disequilibrium, which influences the interpretation of data from genome-wide association studies. We are studying coalescent theory and developing an extensible framework for simulating coalescence by computer. Dr. Tewari is studying the basic mathematics of coalescent theory from textbooks and absorbing the relevant literature. He is presently writing a suite of carefully documented Java programs, with the aim of object-oriented modeling of the coalescent process, and related processes like recombination.